


Deadweight

by Luna_Lee



Category: Naruto
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Battle Couple, GaaLee Fest 2019, Inspired by Florence + the Machine, M/M, Major Character Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-18 20:24:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20318980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luna_Lee/pseuds/Luna_Lee
Summary: His heart is heavy in his chest, concrete and cracking. He'd kept his love a secret for so long, but endless fighting had weakened his resolve. Now with the enemy upon them, his love has become an impossible burden to carry... And it's not him who's carrying it.





	Deadweight

**Author's Note:**

> GaaLee Fest 2019--Day 11: Battle Couple
> 
> This has been a story that's been sitting in my head for... quite a while. Florence+the Machine is one of my favorite artists, and the song 'Heavy in Your Arms' really inspires a lot of heavy imagery for me so I hope I did it justice in executing the story that I see in my head. One thing I struggled with was translating the instrumental elements of the music in particular, but overall I think I like how this turned out.
> 
> Based on [Heavy in Your Arms](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_eOmvM-4zc) by Florence+the Machine, which you should all listen to (possibly while reading). Also a huge shout out to [tendertorn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tendertorn) once again for beta'ng for me! <3

_I was a heavy heart to carry_  
_My beloved was weighed down_  
_My arms around his neck_  
_My fingers laced to crown_

_I was a heavy heart to carry_  
_My feet dragged across the ground_  
_And he took me to the river_  
_where he slowly let me drown_  
_My love has concrete feet_  
_My love's an iron ball_  
_Wrapped around your ankles_  
_Over the waterfall_  
-Heavy in Your Arms, Florence+the Machine

I. 

In the distance there is a high whining, like the twang of an out of tune harp. Lee registers it vaguely—not as if he is dreaming, but as if he is underwater. Everything feels strange, distant, numb: even Gaara's back against his chest as he races them through the forest. 

The enemy must be closer than Lee imagines. 

“Don't let go,” Gaara murmurs. 

Lee makes an aborted sound, half confirmation and half confusion. He doesn't remember what's led them to this point: Gaara racing through the trees, Lee's body a riot of agony and numbness that he can't quite fight, _something_ closing in. 

Gaara stumbles, nearly falling headfirst towards the forest floor. 

“I think I lost them.” He doesn't sound convinced, but his body is shaking and sweat is pouring down his face like heavy rainfall. He sets Lee down on the thick branch they've landed on, leaning him carefully against the tree to look into his face. 

“Open your eyes,” Gaara demands.

His eyes are open, but only just. Gaara is a blur shrouded in shadow within Lee's vision. He forces his eyes wide until Gaara looks clearer and the sunlight filtering through the canopy of leaves is no longer as dim. He doesn't have the energy to keep his eyes open like this for long. 

“Lee.” Gaara's voice is trembling, but he still manages to make Lee's name sound like a command. “Don't close your eyes.” 

Lee tries to smile. “Okay,” he says, his voice less than a whisper, weak and subdued. 

Gaara presses a hand to Lee's face, awkward and insistent and desperate. It's warmth is a comfort against the chill that has seeped into Lee's skin. He manages to lift his hand to Gaara's, his arm as heavy as the weights still on his legs, the skin of which burns through any numbness that might have settled over them. 

_Hii.... hii..._

Gaara's head whips around. After a beat, he says, “We have to go.” 

He drops his hand from Lee's face, frantically pulling at Lee's singed legwarmers. Lee hisses as his legs are jostled, the pain chasing away the fog in his mind until everything is burning, white-hot and sharp. Gaara brings a hand to Lee's mouth, leaning into his personal space to press his forehead to Lee's. “Shh.”

Lee's eyes run with tears and he bites his lip so hard he draws blood, fighting the pain as Gaara sheds his legwarmers.  
Gaara goes still, staring at the weights and the red skin around them. _“No.”_

“Gaara?” 

_Shiiiiiii-nnnnn..._

“There's no time.” Gaara doesn't elaborate further. He grabs Lee's arm and pulls him up, fighting to stay on his own shaking legs as he maneuvers Lee onto his back once more. 

“Your sand—”

“I can't.” The way the words fall from his mouth hurt Lee more than the skin of his calves. With what little strength he has, he presses a kiss to the back of Gaara's neck, a silent apology. 

Gaara pushes off from the tree with a grunt. They're airborne for only a short time before they sail towards a tree much too close. Gaara only just sticks the landing, but Lee's weight pulls them down and they tumble. The forest floor rapidly moves up to greet them, roots and shrubs and hard ground ready to catch their fall. At the last second Lee slows. 

Gaara hits the ground with an echoing thud. Lee follows immediately after, Gaara's sand giving out after only a few precious seconds. The sand falls around them, cascading like hail against Lee's exposed skin. 

“Lee,” Gaara says, frantic. “Are you all right?” He pulls Lee close, dragging him bodily into the thick tangle of bushes and roots until they are hidden from sight. 

Lee finds the question morbidly humorous and chokes a laugh. “Not particularly, but I do not think the fall is to blame.” He smiles up at Gaara, but it doesn't seem to soothe him. 

Instead, tears well at the corners of his eyes, bright and terrible. “If we can get to the southern camps, we can find a medic. Sakura's stationed there—”

“How far?” Talking is proving more difficult, and Lee would rather cut to the chase. 

Gaara's expression is hard and grim, tears falling down his face. “Three days.” 

Lee coughs. His mouth tastes like blood. “I do not know if I will make it that long.” 

Gaara grips him, distress in the clasp of his fingers digging into Lee's shoulder. “Don't say that.” 

“I cannot walk,” Lee points out, voice choked. “It—it hurts. And you cannot keep carrying me.” 

“Yes, I can,” Gaara grounds out, and he pulls Lee close, pulls him into a fierce kiss that Lee barely has the energy for. His mouth tastes of salt, of sweat and tears. There is a hint of blood on Lee's tongue, and he can't decide if it's his or Gaara's. 

“You should leave me behind,” Lee tells him when they break the kiss, touching Gaara's face with trembling fingers. 

_“Never.”_

II. 

The flap of his tent opened, letting in the cool night air, as well as several gnats that flitted towards the small lantern at the center. 

Lee gave Gaara a tired smile. “Kazekage-sama.” 

“Will you ever tire of calling me that?” 

“I suppose it would be more appropriate if I called you 'General',” Lee offered, lightly teasing. 

Gaara rolled his eyes like he always did when Lee refused his offer of informality. He took a seat beside Lee, sitting closer than he did with the other members of their unit. “We could die any day, you don't need to rely on formalities with me.”

Lee stared into the flame. “I know.” 

“Do you do this on purpose?” 

_Yes._

Gaara watched Lee, his gaze seeking, imploring. He only wanted this one thing. It was so simple and so important, but cowardice had settled in Lee's heart. He feared that the only barrier that remained between his feelings and Gaara discovering them was Gaara's name never falling from Lee's lips. 

He looked up at Gaara, blinking owlishly as though he hadn't been paying attention. “Forgive me, what did you say?” 

Gaara huffed his annoyance. “You're a terrible liar.” 

Lee grinned. “A fact I hope never changes, Kazekage-sama. Did you need something?” 

Gaara scrutinized Lee's face without answer. As always, Lee's skin crawled and warmed until he wanted to run from the questions swirling in the green of Gaara's eyes. Lee could never understand what it was Gaara was searching for when he looked at him, but he worried that one day Gaara would find answers Lee never wanted to give. 

“I saw your light on,” Gaara finally said into the tense silence. 

Lee shrugged. “I have been having some difficulty falling asleep, but you do not need to concern yourself with it.” 

“As general, it's my responsibility. If you're not resting, you might make a mistake.” 

Lee flinched away from the reminder. “I understand.” 

“As your friend,” Gaara added more poignantly. “As... someone who cares for you, I worry.” 

Lee's breath caught in his throat for a heartbeat, his gaze trapped by Gaara's. “I—I just—”

“I'm scared too.” 

Lee came up short. How many years had they been fighting? How many nights had they spent lying awake, waiting for the end to come? How many days had they gone without food or rest while they ran from an unstoppable, unnameable force? How many lives had they lost to senseless war? 

Lee had lost track on the third anniversary of how many bodies they'd burned. After the fourth year of mourning and fighting, they'd stopped remembering the start of it all entirely. Now, the only marks for the passage of time were the nightmares. 

“It is almost the anniversary of Neji's death,” Lee breathed into the silence. The flame of his lantern flickered, fluttering like fabric on a breeze. “I always find it difficult to sleep soundly this time of year.” 

Gaara's hand on his startled Lee. He nearly jumped a foot in the air, but he clamped down on the reaction before he could lose the contact. He swallowed, looking up to meet Gaara's eyes. 

“I should have realized,” Gaara murmured. 

Lee shook his head. “It is not your responsibility to remember all the names and faces of those we have lost.” 

“But I do remember them. All of them. I remember their names, their faces, if they had family... how they died. I can't ever forget.” 

“That is a terrible burden to bear,” Lee whispered. 

“It's my fault we lost so many. I'm supposed to be a leader, I'm supposed to be able to protect you all—”

“You are not invincible!” 

Gaara's laughter was barely a laugh, more a huff, a bitter puff of air escaping him on a toneless chuckle. “I was once upon a time.” He squeezed Lee's hand, the same hand his sand had squeezed during their match all those years ago. “But that changed a long time ago.” 

Lee turned his hand and entwined their fingers, giving in to the dangerous urge lurking in his heart. “You should not have to carry the burden of our losses alone.” 

“If we can reach the other camps, perhaps I won't have to.” He squeezed Lee's hand again, then moved to pull away, but Lee held fast. 

“If I could help you carry this burden—” He didn't have any flowery speeches prepared for this, and there was no way to dress up casualties of war, of senseless slaughter so that it looked and sounded beautiful. “I am sorry. It is foolish of me to offer, but I—I do care about you.”

“Then why do you keep me at a distance?” 

“We could die any day,” Lee said, echoing Gaara's earlier words.

“Does it make it easier? Keeping me at arm's length?” 

“No.” 

“Then don't,” Gaara murmured, leaning close. 

Lee tracked Gaara's movement the way he tracked an opponent in battle. Time froze around him, and Gaara moved towards him as though through a genjutsu. Lee met him halfway, faster and more forceful than he'd meant to in his haste to reach the final conclusion of Gaara's attack—just as he'd done during their match. He'd always been ready to meet Gaara blow for blow; he'd been too afraid to meet him kiss for kiss, and even as their lips met, his heart beat like a frightened rabbit. 

But if they were going to die, what was the point in waiting? The enemy was relentless, tireless, endless. 

He might as well have this. 

He broke the kiss, his breath rattling in his lungs like the fear in his heart. His hands shook as he lifted them to cup Gaara's face, tears blurring the light from his lantern until the flame's golden glow was a mosaic of light dancing in Gaara's eyes. 

Gaara's eyes shined in the light, staring at Lee's mouth for a tense moment where Lee thought he'd made a mistake, where he'd thought he'd misunderstood—

Before he could apologize, Gaara was on him, pushing him down onto his sleeping bag and kissing him as though it were the only thing keeping him alive. 

Maybe it was. 

III.

There is a rushing sound of water cascading over rocks close by, but the sound of Gaara panting, heavy and hot, overwhelms Lee's hearing. He hears it like the coming of a storm, like the memory of that night that's slipping through his fingers. How many days have they been running for their lives? How long has Gaara carried him, injured and dying, weights fused to the skin of his calves and weighing them down? How long before Gaara's strength gives out completely? 

“Stay with me.” He isn't talking to Lee so much as he's praying. Lee can still hear him, but words won't come anymore. His lungs ache with each breath, his throat feels dry and raw, and the tang of blood is all he can taste. He doesn't even remember the salt of Gaara's kiss now. 

The enemy is still hunting them, following a trail of sand that slips from Gaara as he weakens. 

It's all Gaara can do to hold Lee, to keep his feet from dragging through the brush, to keep his own legs from giving out. Lee knows he's an impossible weight to carry. Maybe if he hadn't told Gaara in whispered snatches how much he loves him, maybe if they hadn't spent a desperate night together in Lee's tent—maybe then Gaara wouldn't be fighting so hard to save him. 

Through the haze, he knows only that it will be his fault if Gaara dies. 

All the love in his heart isn't going to save them. Just like he couldn't save Neji or Gai; just like he couldn't save the squad of frightened Genin; just like he couldn't save himself. 

The silent creeping of his failure follows the trail of sand, chasing after Lee along with the enemy. 

_Biiiriii... Biiiriii... Hiiiii... Hiiiii..._

Eventually, it will all catch up to them. 

IV. 

_“I love you.”_

The words echoed around them, loud in the silence. Lee felt the weight of them like the weights around his ankles, like iron clamped around his heart. In the midst of endless war, love didn't feel like the promise of forever. It felt like the last words of a dying man. 

Maybe he was. 

_“I love you, too.”_

Maybe they both were. 

And even though each kiss felt like damnation, felt like a death sentence, felt like the weight of the world finally crushing them after all these years, neither of them could stop. They held each other tight, held each other close; they kissed one another, mouths seeking any place to rest upon; they breathed each other in with deep, stuttering gasps, heavy moans against more kisses. 

Lee knew it was a mistake—he'd never even meant to tell, to let his secret spill from him. But once they'd fallen into each other, once they'd had what they'd both wanted, stopping seemed more foolish than starting had. 

Love during war was a curse, and Lee didn't think there was a magic strong enough to break it. 

V. 

Lee's arms slip from around Gaara's neck, his fingers sliding from his wet hair where they'd found purchase—a last minute tether to his body, to the world, to Gaara. 

The enemy had found them hiding from a torrential downpour in a cave. Gaara had barely managed to get them out. Lee had been vaguely aware of Gaara scooping him into his arms instead of carefully positioning him on his back and making a break for it. 

Somehow, he'd found the strength to hold on, even as the rain chilled his body to numbness, pushing him close to Death's cold grasp.

“Stay with me.” Gaara's breathing is labored, his throat sounds as raw as the pain in his words. He jostles Lee, slowing to a stop in a thick copse of trees too crowded to run through. He falls to his knees, the weight of Lee in his arms sending them deep into the mud. A broken sob echoes around them. “Stay with me. Please.” 

That final please is a warbling note, a sad song muffled by a sudden shout of thunder high above. 

Lee heaves a breath, forcing his arms up around Gaara's neck though it aches impossibly. He shudders, winding his fingers through tangled, dripping, red hair. He wishes they could go back to that night where his hands had tangled in that same spot with pleasure, with love. He wants to hold on to that moment, to that memory. 

“Lee,” Gaara begs, his tears falling as torrential as the rain onto Lee's face. 

Lee chokes, forcing his eyes open, forcing himself to look up into the tears shining in Gaara's eyes. “Ga—Gaara.” 

Gaara presses his forehead close to Lee's, presses a kiss to his unresponsive mouth, and cries. 

VI.

Silence filled the small space in the absence of their whispered promises and oaths. 

Lee stared into the darkness, his lantern long burned out, eyes flitting across the blackness hanging over him. Something heavy sat on his chest, something other than Gaara's hand with his fingers tracing Lee's scars idly. Somehow, Lee's heart felt soothed. 

He didn't think he had any right to feel that way. 

He grasped Gaara's hand, stopping his careful ministrations. “Will things be different now? Between us?” 

Gaara lifted himself up, staring down at Lee in the dark. “I should hope you at least call me by my name now.” 

Lee couldn't help the laugh that escaped him, almost as joyous and carefree as his laughter had been before the war. “Did I not say your name enough times tonight?” 

Gaara hummed, leaning close to Lee. It sounded like the purring of a contented cat. He pressed a kiss to the shell of Lee's ear, slow and languorous. “Never enough.” 

Lee closed his eyes, breathing deep, fighting against contentment. If he dropped his guard for too long, it could be disastrous. Despite his own warnings, his arm still wound itself around Gaara, pulling him closer. 

“It will be dawn soon.” Gaara didn't seem particularly concerned. 

“So we have some time left?” Lee asked, cheeky. Hopeful. Desperate. He didn't want this moment to end. He wanted to live in it forever. 

Gaara pulled his hand from Lee's, lifting it to his mouth to run his thumb along Lee's lower lip. “Some. We move out at dawn.” 

“How much is 'some'?” 

He could picture the soft curl at the corner of Gaara's mouth. “An hour, perhaps.” 

Lee pushed himself up without warning, all speed and grace and strength, to capture Gaara's mouth in a kiss so tender and so heated it felt like he'd performed some fire jutsu. It seared, made every inch of him sing—electrified and burning. It felt like all the promises he hadn't yet made. 

He pulled back, only long enough to whisper, “I love you.” 

Gaara's mouth crashed against his before he'd moved half an inch to continue the kiss. 

They fell back into each other, into the rhythms and notes of before. They lost themselves again to the moment they'd thought would never come, and Lee whispered the promises that kiss had scorched along his tongue: 

“I will protect you.”

VII. 

Gaara's chakra is a dying star. It's fading, flickering away with each step he takes, with every tremble of his arms trying to support Lee.

Lee's mind is far off, as far off as the rushing water in the distance. 

“We're close,” Gaara promises. He has promised this too many times for Lee to count now. “Just hold on.” 

Lee imagines that he grips Gaara's hair tighter, but he doesn't know if his fingers so much as twitch in response. He hasn't been able to feel his extremities for some time now. He tries to make a sound instead, but that fails too. He wonders if perhaps he's already dead. Perhaps he's a ghost, trapped in his own body, determined to stay with the man he loves. 

He wants to tell Gaara about his revelation, he wants to tell Gaara to leave him and run. 

But the words still won't come. 

“Lee,” Gaara's voice hovers on a broken note, a stifled, “Lee, please. Hold on.” 

_Anything for you._

For a split second, he thinks he feels his heart beat, frail as a baby bird's wings. 

It doesn't give him hope. 

A memory from the life he'd lived surfaces like a nightmare. 

“You're just deadweight,” Neji had told him after a mission gone wrong during their Genin days. “You'll get us all killed one day.” 

Lee wonders if ghosts can cry. 

The roar of rapids echoes around them, but it doesn't mask the terrible, eldritch sound of the approaching enemy. 

_Biii-riii.... Biii-riii..._

The broken harp strings sing, closing in. 

“L-leave. Me.” 

Gaara doesn't answer and Lee doubts that he's said the words at all.

Instead, Gaara drags his feet across the ground, heaving Lee with him as he makes for the edge of a cliff. The sound of water grows louder and louder with each heavy step. A mist falls around them. 

_Hiiii-hiiiii...._

Gaara looks back, the motion abortive and slow. Exhaustion hangs heavy around his eyes, the black rings darker than they've ever been. The green of his eyes is muted, jade left to bleach in the sun. There is no hope left in their endless depths. 

“I love you,” Gaara whispers. 

And then suddenly they are falling...

All around them water rushes...

They keep falling...

Gaara holds Lee close, grips him tight as they fall towards the river's surface, its depth unknown. The mist of the waterfall rises around them like smoke, obscuring them from the circling enemy above. 

_Shiiiii-nnnnn..._

They hit the water and Lee's weights slowly drag them down.

**Author's Note:**

> The noise the 'enemy' makes is Japanese onomatopoeia 'shin' (しん cold deeply penetrating your body), biribiri (びりびり something like glass resonating from an explosion, rattling), and hiihii (ひーひー Crying out with a pitiful voice). The sounds were one of the hardest aspects to this fic, but I'm pretty satisfied with the end result!


End file.
